Knowledge Management in Canadian Healthcare Organizations: How Do Knowledge Brokers Perform?

Under the Canada’s health Act, the health sector is administered and operated on a nonprofit basis by the public authority. The sustainability of Canada’s public health-care system depends in large part on its ability to implement strategies to improve its perform‐ ance in terms of social, economic, organizational and professional. Knowledge-brokering is an emerging function in the healthcare systems worldwide. Championed as a corner‐ stone role for knowledge translation by the Canadian Health Services Research Founda‐ tion, the implications of understanding this function and those who undertake it are important for improving knowledge management in the healthcare sector where there is a spread of the evidence informed/based decision making (EI/BDM) movement. Knowl‐ edge brokering is defined, by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, through a set of basic skills that are the ability to bring people together and facilitate their interaction; the ability to find academic research and other evidence to shape decisions; the ability to assess evidence, interpret it and adapt it to circumstance; a knowledge of marketing, communication and Canadian healthcare; and the ability to identify emerging management and policy issues which research could help to resolve. Its mandate is to support in the organization, management and delivery of health services and its main strategy for doing so is to link decision makers and researchers to ensure effective knowledge transfer.